Isabelle's Pandemonium
Pandemonium was crowded tonight. The all-ages club was swarming with mundies, each one more scantily clad than the next. Not that I was judging. This club gets so humid with all of the swaying bodies. I, for one, was working up a sweat and the fun had not yet even begun. The floor length white gown I was wearing was beautiful with its long lace sleeves and vintage simplicity. It had been my grandmothers and my mom would be livid if I got any demon ichor on it. But I had needed something to conceal the runes covering my body; they would have been a dead giveaway to any demon.
I scanned the crowd looking for the demon I had spotted earlier; it was easy to lose sight of someone – or something I should say – in a crowd like Pandemonium. Suddenly I caught sight of him as the colored lights illuminated him. His electric blue hair was styled into something that vaguely reminded me of octopus tentacles, a startling contrast to his pale skin and his red jacket. He was scanning the crowd as well, trying to decide which mundane would be his dinner for tonight. I started towards him, staring him down with my most seductive look. His green eyes, the color of antifreeze lit up as he saw me. His eyes drank me in and his mouth turned up into a smirk. The pendant around my neck pulsated alerting me to the demonic presence before me.
As I walked past him I threw him a flirtatious smile, one that clearly indicated that I wanted to be followed. Once I reached the door marked ADMITTANCE – STORAGE I looked behind me to see if the demon boy was following me. He was, looking like he was completely hypnotized. Not too far behind I saw Jace and Alec trailing him, unnoticed in their black shadow hunter gear. Well that and our invisibility to humans kept us concealed. I gave the demon a coy smile and opened the door, beckoning him with my eyes. Jace winked at me as I slipped through the door.
I've always been an exceptional liar, and I never minded being the bait to lure demons away from crowds, it always proved to be very effective. As long as I wasn't made out to be the damsel in distress, I wasn't averse to using my sexuality to my advantage.
As the demon followed me into the storage room, Alec and Jace snuck in behind us without a sound. Their silence runes allowing them to stealthily trail the demon we were hunting.
"What's your name?" the disgusting creature asked me, his voice making my skin crawl. I turned around to look at him.
"Isabelle," I replied sweetly. I was so going to enjoy killing this demon. My body hummed in anticipation.
"I haven't seen you here before," the demon replied, eyeing me up.
"You're asking me if I come here often?" I giggled. I brought my hand up to cover my mouth as I did this, a deliberate move. I was bored of this silly game. The demon noticed the rune around my wrist as he took a step closer, freezing in his tracks as he realized I wasn't a mundane.
"You –" he didn't have a chance to finish as I leaped at him, striking at him with my open palm to his chest sending him staggering backwards. Before he had a chance to recover my coiling gold whip was already in hand. With a flick of my wrist the whip snaked out and caught the demon by the ankles and with a jerk I sent him tumbling to the ground, the blessed metal biting deep into his skin. I threw my head back and laughed, my ink black hair tumbling down my back with the movement.
"He's all yours, boys," I called to Jace and Alec standing in the shadows. Jace laughed as he and Alec moved forwards into the light. Both moved with stealth but the two boys were very different. Jace was shorter than Alec, with much broader shoulders. His pale blond hair made me think of a lion whenever I saw him and he moved with the same confidence. Alec was built like me – tall and slim with the same jet black hair. He moved much more cautiously than Jace, his eyes scanning the room being the typical responsible and boring older brother that he was. Despite his complete lack of interest in anything resembling fun, I loved my brother dearly. Jace, who for all intents and purposes was my brother as well, having come to live with my family at the age of ten after he was orphaned.
"So," Jace said. "Are there any more with you?" The demon stared up at him.
"Any other what?" the demon replied, feigning stupidity.
"Come on now," Jace taunted as he held up his hands, showing the demon the runes on his arms. "You know what I am."
"Shadowhunter," hissed the demon, glaring at Jace.
"Got you," said Jace, grinning. "So you still haven't told me if there is any other of your kind with you." Jace continued.
"I don't know what you're talking about" continued the demon with his charade.
"He means other demons," said Alec, speaking for the first time. "You do know what a demon is, don't you?"
"Demons," drawled Jace. "Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension –"
"That's enough, Jace," I interrupted, annoyed by his long winded display of taunting the demon lying on the ground before us.
"Isabelle's right," agreed Alec, impatience clear on his pale face, his dark eyes glittering. "Nobody here needs a lesson in semantics – or demonology."
"Isabelle and Alec think I talk too much," Jace continued, teasing the demon. "Do you think I talk too much?"
"I could give you information," pleaded the demon, the knowledge of his nearing death evident in his electric green eyes. "I know where Valentine is."
Jace glanced back at Alec, who shrugged. "Valentine's in the ground," Jace said. "The thing's just toying with us."
"Kill it, Jace," I said, tossing my long wavy hair over my shoulder. "It's not going to tell us anything."
Jace raised his seraph blade in hand, ready to plunge it into the demon.
"Valentine is back!" cried the demon, a feeble attempting to save his life. "All the Infernal Worlds know it – I know it – I can tell you where he is –"
"By the Angel," cursed Jace, "Every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too. He's in hell. And you can join him there!" Jace raised his hand higher ready to end the pathetic demon's life.
"Stop! You can't do this," yelled a feminine voice from behind us. Jace, Alec and I wheeled around to face the source of the voice. A girl about the same age as I am stood before us, her fiery red hair spun away from her face in curls and her green eyes were alight with fear and anger.
"What's this?" demanded Alec, looking from the girl to Jace and me.
"It's a girl. Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one," teased Jace, eyeing up the girl before us, taking a step towards her. "A mundie girl," muttered Jace to himself perplexed. "And she can see us."
"Of course I can see you," the girl said, confusion evident in her pretty face. "I'm not blind, you know." So the girl has sass I thought.
"Oh, but you are," said Jace knowingly. "You just don't know it. You'd better get out of here, if you know what's good for you."
"I'm not going anywhere. If I do, you'll kill him," she stated stubbornly, pointing at the demon on the ground. If only you knew what you were defending I thought, rolling my eyes at this girl's stupidity. She was getting on my nerves and we had a demon to kill.
'That's true," admitted Jace. "What do you care if I kill him or not?"
"Be-because –" stuttered the girl. "You can't just go around killing people."
"You're absolutely right," teased Jace. "You can't go around killing people. That's not a person, little girl. It may look like a person and talk like a person and maybe even bleed like a person. But it's a monster," Jace said as he pointed a finger in the unconscious demon's direction.
"Jace," I warned. "That's enough." This girl needed to be dealt with and that demon needed to be killed. Jace always enjoyed the theatrics and never missed an opportunity to embrace them.
"You're crazy. I've called the police, you know. They'll be here any second," said the girl backing away, fear seeping from her pores.
"She's lying," said Alec with uncertainty. "Jace, do you –" He never got to finish his sentence. For at that moment the demon tore free of his restraints with a yowling cry and flung himself on Jace.